


leave the olives on

by Rupzydaisy



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, andromaquynh, sharing food, team film night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:34:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29923152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rupzydaisy/pseuds/Rupzydaisy
Summary: "Hang on, this is why there's that half-eaten olive loaf in the freezer, isn't it?" asks Nile. Her eyes widen in disbelief. “I can’t believe you brought that back from the bakery without complaining!”"Maybe." Andy shrugs and picks off another large olive slice to add onto the pile. "Thank you, love of my life, my saviour from the olive menace.""Yes, I'll vanquish all your enemies babe." Quỳnh teases back, happily scooping up a few more olives into her mouth.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 16
Kudos: 33
Collections: The Old Guard Femslash Fortnight 2020





	leave the olives on

**Author's Note:**

> Monday's Prompt for the TOG Femslash Fortnight: Fave Headcanons - Sharing Food
> 
> [@Lilo](https://lilolilyr.tumblr.com/) mentioned this headcanon mentioned in the Femslash discord, and I just think it’s neat. They’ve got so much fluff to catch up on anyway.  
> And I literally couldn’t think of a title so idk

“Oh, and can you leave off the olives?” Nile mentions down the phone, and suddenly Andy’s sliding it out of her hand. 

“No, no. Olives are fine. Leave them on,” insists Andy. 

Nile’s confusion radiates off her even as she takes back the phone and finishes off their pizza night order. “What was that about? You said you hated olives last time. Like...you went on and on for ages about how they should-” 

“It’s food.” Andy waves her hand. “I can live with a veggie pizza with all the toppings.” 

“Alright…” Nile draws out the word and she puts the phone back on the stand. When she flops down on the sofa to change the channel, Nile completely misses Quỳnh’s grin from across the room. 

Curled up sideways on the armchair with a thick book propped up in her lap, Quỳnh leans far enough backwards to catch Andy's hand. It halts Andy walking away long enough for her to press a small kiss to her palm. 

It’s a nice distraction, in a week full of nice little distractions.

They had settled in a rented apartment in the middle of the city with a charade of being off-season tourists on an extended holiday. It meant they were left unbothered by the actual residents in the block and when they did pick up the keys looking bone-tired from finishing a successful mission, they had the handy excuse of coming in on a long-haul flight.

The wait for the doorbell isn't long. No one ran the risk of turning ‘hangry’ as Nile had described to her. Putting her book down, Quỳnh makes it to the door first and brings back the boxes to the small dining table.

Then there's a quick muddle of hands crossing over each other to dish the food out. Andy gets hers with a sympathetic wince from Joe. "They've not taken the olives off, boss." 

She drags the box closer. "It's fine."

Joe's look of surprise makes Nicky chuckle, and Quỳnh smirks across the table at him. The surprise melts away into a grin. When Andy's head tilt catches her eye, Quỳnh takes the opportunity to deliver a very tasteful wink.

Slipping back into their old patterns had been difficult, especially when things had been so far left behind and life had moved on. But every now and again something would match up nicely and she’d find Andy looking back at her with a look in her eye, _some things will never change,_ and it would feel like the gap around her would shrink down to fit her so perfectly it was like she had never been torn away from them. 

It gives the echo of that long-held promise, _you and me,_ a little more weight as Quỳnh found her place in the world again. 

"Not the beanbag!" Andy claims her space as she lifts her pizza up and vaults over the back of the sofa. 

Quỳnh watches in glee as she lands with a thump on the cushions. From the look on Andy’s face, it’s clear she got a big waft of fresh dough and tomato sauce from inside, and when Quỳnh’s stomach growls with anticipation, she’s eager to get her hands on her own dinner, knowing every iteration of fresh bread with toppings was a good one. 

"And Quỳnh, here's your Hawaiian," says Nile. "We can mark it off the list. Pineapple on a pizza...you'll have to pick a side!"

There’s a ripple of laughter around the room, and Joe and Nicky begin to offer up other alternatives that she could or should try. 

“Strawberries and mascarpone.” 

“Nutella.” 

“How about durian-”

“No,” interrupts Nile. “Not again! Once was enough.” 

“Agreed.” Booker chimes in. Ignoring all the pizza boxes, including his own, he reaches over the table and grabs a spoon before cracking open the tub of strawberry shortcake ice cream. "What?" 

"Nothing."

Quỳnh had long since perfected the look of disinterest and used it liberally when haggling in marketplaces, but when Booker holds her gaze, she knows it had come off a little too sharp. She leans closer and tries to smile around it. "That's the one with the biscuits bits?" 

He raises an eyebrow nonchalantly. "I'll leave you half." 

She slaps her palm onto the table. "Two thirds."

There's a brief staring match, and inevitably, Booker is the first to blink. "Fine. If I can have the spare Hawaiian slices."

With their hands full of pizza boxes and plates, they all head towards the sofas and the pillows in the living room. Quỳnh lengthens her stride to zip past all of them. She plops down on the sofa next to Andy who slips her pizza box across their laps, and then her arm around Quỳnh’s shoulder. 

Out of all the simple things she had wished for during the brief moments of lucidity within the iron maiden, this was not one of them. As unexpected as it was to sit in front of a box filled up of moving images leaning into her love’s arms, it also wasn’t something she wanted to let slip away. 

Quỳnh leans into her weight and the cushions behind her and sighs happily.

“Want my olives?” whispers Andy. 

It had been something she had been waiting for all evening, but when Quỳnh turns to flash a grin, she’s surprised to see that although Andy’s blue eyes are still fixed on her face, her focus on the here-and-now is gone.

It takes a little squeeze of her forearm to bring Andy back. Her concentration breaks and she blinks. “I was thinking of Athens. Do you remember?” 

“No,” says Quỳnh truthfully. It’s a memory lost to time or to the water. At first, it had been too painful to decipher which was the cause, but slowly she was coming to terms with it. “How about you tell me later?”

“I will." Andy looks down at the pizza, and her smile softens. "Here."

Like no time had passed, they fall into an old habit that results in a small pile of olive pieces on Quỳnh's side of the box. It isn’t until Andy pulls off a large piece and pulls a face as Quỳnh quickly snags it between her teeth that the others realise she’s not playing with her food. 

"Hang on, this is why there's that half-eaten olive loaf in the freezer, isn't it?" asks Nile. Her eyes widen in disbelief. “I can’t believe _you_ brought that back from the bakery without complaining!”

"Maybe." Andy shrugs and picks off another large olive slice to add onto the pile. "Thank you, love of my life, my saviour from the olive menace."

"Yes, I'll vanquish all your enemies babe." Quỳnh teases back, happily scooping up a few more olives into her mouth. 

They had already had a short but thrilling arm wrestling tournament to settle the viewing order, and now with the food in front of them, only needed to settle in for the marathon. Nicky catches the remote from Joe and sticks his tongue out at Nile’s bemusement at the whirring box under the screen.

By the time the third giant explosion lit up the screen, they had piled up the boxes behind the sofa and moved onto dessert. Joe and Nicky turned the floor into a blanket pile and Nile shuffled closer to stick her feet under it. Lying on the floor beside them, Booker half-watched the film while scrolling through the football results. After he delivers the result on a match, he slaps a wedge of notes into Nicky’s hand.

With a groan, Booker rolls away until he's lying on his back alongside the sofa. He looks up at Quỳnh and the ice cream tub in her hand. 

“Any spare ice cream?" he asks. "I need to drown my sorrows.”

She tips her head down at the half-eaten tub, and then snuggles closer to Andy. “Hmm, there’s pistachio in the freezer?” 

With another groan, Booker pulls himself to his feet. “I see why you drove a hard bargain."

"High rewards." Quỳnh quips back as she digs out another shortcake chunk, nudges it over to Andy's side of the tub, and gets a strawberry-sweet kiss for her efforts.


End file.
